Chapter 16 Where Want Leaves a Shadow
772 Words
The grove did not react.
No thunder. No bending of branches. No forest verdict.
That was the problem.
Amihan stood very still, watching him. He looked unchanged. Crown steady. Shoulders squared. Breath even.
Too even.
Tala moved first, stepping toward him. “What do you feel?”
Silawán considered the question.
“I feel… capable,” he said. “My thoughts are clear. My body answers me. The forest still listens.”
He paused, as if searching for something misplaced.
“But it does not pull,” he added.
Amihan’s chest tightened.
“Pull?” Ilyaon asked.
Silawán nodded once. “There used to be a pressure. A forwardness. Like the world learning slightly toward me, asking what I wanted to do with it.”
He met Amihan’s eyes.
“It’s gone.”
She swallowed.
“That’s… good, isn’t it?” she said carefully. “You’re still king. You’re still yourself.”
“Yes,” Silawán agreed. Then, softer, “But I no longer reach.”
Silence settled.
Liraya closed her eyes briefly. “It took your want to choose, not your want to possess.”
Silawán inclined his head. “Clear.”
Kisê scoffed. “Clever is not the word I’d use.”
Tala touched Silawán’s arm. “You should rest.”
“I am resting,” he replied.
That, too, frightened her.
Later, when the grove thinned into terraces of light and shadow, Maharlika arrived.
She did not announce herself.
She never had.
She stepped from between two trees as if she had always been there, her presence crisp and deliberate. Her hair was bound in silver thread, her garments dark and precise, the kind worn by those who knew exactly where they stood in the world.
Silawán turned.
Something in his posture shifted. Not yearning.
Recognition.
“Maharlika,” he said.
“You’re thinner,” she observed. “Or the forest has stopped flattering you.”
He almost smiled.
Amihan watched from a distance she pretended was accidental.
Maharlika approached Silawán, her gaze sharp, assessing. She did not touch him immediately.
“You let the Collector bargain with you,” she said.
“Yes.”
“That was foolish.”
“Yes.”
She studied him, then reached out, fingers brushed his wrist.
The contact lingered.
Maharlika frowned. “You’re wrong.”
He tilted his head. “In what way?”
“You feel… incomplete,” she said. “But not broken.”
She stepped closer, her voice dropping. “You don’t want me.”
Amihan’s breath caught.
Silawán did not deny it.
“I don’t want anything,” he said quietly. “That is the problem.”
Maharlika’s expression shifted. Something old and restrained surfaced.
“Then why,” she asked, “does it still hurt to stand this close?”
Silawán hesitated.
Not because he felt it.
But because he remembered how it used to feel.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
Maharlika’s hand slid from his wrist to his chest, over his heart. Not possessive. Confirming.
Amihan turned away too late.
The sight lodged somewhere sharp.
She frowned, annoyed at herself.
It doesn’t matter, she thought. That was before. And I—
Ilyaon appeared beside her, quiet as always.
“You’re staring,” he said gently.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
She huffed. “I just… didn’t realize she was still here.”
“She always is,” Ilyaon said. “Some people never really leave.”
He paused, then added, “Does that bother you?”
“No,” Amihan said too quickly. “Why would it?”
He nodded, accepting the answer she gave instead of the one she felt.
Maharlika stepped back from Silawán.
“You should have told me,” she said.
“I didn’t know how.”
She studied him one last time. “When you remember how to want,” she said, “come find me.”
She left without looking at Amihan.
The forest exhaled.
Silawán remained where he was, gaze distant, as if listening for something that refused to answer.
Amihan felt hollow and irritated and unsteady all at once.
I love Ilyaon, she reminded herself firmly.
The thought did not settle the way it should have.
A tremor passed through the grove.
Liraya stiffened. “The balance is shifting again.”
Tala’s grip tightened on Amihan’s arm. “Something is moving.”
From the far edge of the trees, the ground darkened.
Not opening.
Not yet.
But waiting.
Silawán straightened.
“I think,” he said calmly, “the Collector has come back to finish what it started.”
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